


Vagaries of Space and Time

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Astronauts, End of the World, Hope, M/M, Outer Space, Relativity, Separations, genius arthur, self-sacrificial gesture, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:37:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2704058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interstellar AU. Earth's resources are shrinking; atmospheric changes are taking their toll on the world's population. The human race is on its knees, its last leg. The only hope is relocation. A team of astronauts is sent out to plumb the depths of space for a new home for humanity. Merlin must leave everything behind, including Arthur. But this is for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vagaries of Space and Time

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks go to Archaelogist_D and Argentsleeper for the incredibly swift beta read. They're both mega lovely. I'm also in debt to the maginificent Spacealtie for the science beta, whitout which this fic would be littered with many more scientific errors! Any remaning ones are on me and derive from my inability to wrap my head around the subject.

Crops fail. Corn bows down to its sheafs, grizzled and brown. Wheat dries on its stalks. Oats rot at their roots, in their own mulch. Potato plants turn black and curl in upon themselves until they too blacken and decay. Weeds strangle the useful plants; the sun becomes pale and doesn't warm the soft earth. The soil grows cold, inhospitable. The air is heavy with dust and scratches at the throat.

The third great blight begins.

 

**** 

Light streams on the bed in thin pale stripes washing in from the windows. It caresses Arthur's body, lends it its glow. Merlin thinks that sunlight loves Arthur, makes love to him in a way Merlin wishes he could emulate.

But he only has his body to tell Arthur how he feels.

Palming his neck, Merlin kisses Arthur firm on the lips, where sunlight paints his smile gold.

In his turn, Arthur nips at the bow of Merlin's upper lip, chases the shape of it with his tongue. "Stay."

“I'm not going anywhere,” Merlin says, following the warmth of Arthur with his body.

Merlin kisses Arthur deeper, till Arthur gasps, arches off the bed, wraps his arms and legs around him. The way he moulds his body to Merlin's tightens a hold around Merlin's heart, makes him breathless with the pain and joy of it. In the push and pull of sex, their cocks slide together, girth to girth, slit to girth, till they're both wet with it and tearing gasps out of each other.

Merlin nuzzles Arthur's throat down to his collarbone, licks it. Arthur bucks into the touch, bites and kneads Merlin's shoulder, roams his hands down the back of Merlin's spine, til or until his bones become liquid and Merlin wants to scream his love for Arthur to the winds. 

Of course, he doesn't. There's some things that are between them but that Merlin can't voice. He brims over with feeling all the time when he's around Arthur, but can't say as much because it's so overwhelming. But here and now he can make it clear by holding tight to Arthur and doing his best to touch him in a way Arthur likes.

It seems to work.

Arthur thrusts his hips up, pushing his cock against Merlin's, and between his thighs, grazing it against the length of his hip, shedding pre-come that Merlin can feel smear his skin. He teases the side of Merlin's neck with tongue and teeth and lips. He threads his hand in Merlin's hair and makes a mess of it. Gasping against his throat, he angles Merlin's face and grazes kisses on Merlin's skin. When Merlin responds by rounding his palms around the curves of Arthus' shoulder, by fitting them along the length of his body, Arthur arches off the bed and into Merlin, until both of them are panting, moving in a rush of need that accelerates their tempo, makes it that little bit more frantic. 

Melin's insides dilate, warm up, while at the same time his lungs go ever so small, and he's dizzy on that, on Arthur, how good it is to be with him. He wants never to stop, to always be in this bed, and in Arthur's arms, hopes the world will last long enough for him to be able to.

 

Merlin lines Arthur's torso with opened-mouth kisses, raises bruises at his hips, teases the flesh of his belly with sucking kisses.

He looks up for a moment, locks gazes with Arthur. And though Arthur's eyes are glazed with arousal, Merlin reads want in them, encouragement. Arthur's mouth opens when Merlin seals his lips around the head of his cock, flattening his tongue against its underside. He starts light and slow, pressing his tongue against the ridge of its crown and then searching Arthur's slit with it. 

Arthur make a noise, grabs the sheets.

Merlin goes down on him, sucks hard and harsh. Merlin bobs his head. On the up he works his tongue around the foreskin, teases paths with the edge of his teeth, whisper soft. He slips his lips down Arthur's length and pulls back up, starts the process again, going further down on each pass. As he pulls back up, he opens his mouth a notch so Arthur can slide off his lips. He kisses below the wet head then, sucking kisses that are mostly teasing, pulls the hood down with his fingers. Arthur hisses, works his hips up, and Merlin takes his cock past the seam of his lips again. This time he pushes his lips further down, swallows around Arthur. Arthur grabs him by the neck, cradles Merlin's head against his groin, hands in his hair. Legs splayed wide and knees up, he thrashes, rocking his hips, his whole body, forward. 

At that, Merlin's eyes prick with tears and he gets a little choked, but this is all right. He wants Arthur to have everything of him. He wants him off his head with pleasure. He needs Arthur to feel the way Merlin does every time he's in a room with him, like there's too little air, and too much space between them, and everything, everything boils down to the other. Merlin gives it his all, lets Arthur do what he will with him.

When Arthur comes rasping out his name, Merlin tastes the flavour of him, coughs, wipes his knuckles across his mouth. Once Arthur's stopped shivering, Merlin climbs up him and skims his lips along his collarbone, and up his throat, where his sweat has pooled, salty and still warm with the body heat of him. He slants his mouth across Arthur's next, kissing him off kilter as he ruts against him. Arthur palms his face with one hand; he wraps the other around Merlin, pulls on his cock with fast movements of his hands.

Merlin whines against Arthur's mouth, stifles his breath on the kisses Arthur gives him. It's a volley of them, soft presses that succeed one another in a hectic tempo, quick and fast and a little shallow. They last until Merlin comes with a sigh.

Later when they're both lying on sheets that are quickly cooling, Arthur says, “Father wants to try barley and beans this spring. Maybe they'll have a better yield than corn.”

“If you need a hand,” Merlin says, running his palm up and down Arthur's flank.

“No,” Arthur says, intercepting his hand and kissing his knuckles. “No. You have your program to finish.”

“Arthur.” Merlin pushes off his elbows, looks Arthur in the eye. “Honest, what's more important, you or a program that may never take off?”

“The secret program,” Arthur says, and the way he does it tells Merlin he believes it. “Look, I'm not going to stay stuck on this farm forever. I'm going to uni, too. I mean to finish. But right now, we've got to eat first.”

“Which is why I want to help,” Merlin says. “I can continue working on the project when it's not so bad.”

“No.” Arthur locks his jaw. “You're doing important stuff. One day... it might be our salvation. You have to help them test the craft. I can do all the work. I'm an excellent farmer.”

“Arthur!” Merlin knows just how good Arthur is at physics, and how his talent is not geared towards crops. “That's not... I mean you're not a bad farmer--” Arthur has talked about buying property when he's older so that he and Merlin can live off it. “But you're good at uni, too. You shouldn't give it up.”

“Which one is most useful right now?” Arthur says. “Which one will feed Morgana or ensure that my dad has everything he needs in his old age?”

“Arthur, you could get as far as Professor Kilgharrah has,” Merlin says.

“Maybe. I can't be sure.” Arthur gives a one shouldered-shrug. “Either way, that would take time, and that's just not a luxury we have.”

“Just promise me,” Merlin says, locking eyes with Arthur, “that you won't give up on uni permanently.”

“Promise,” Arthur says, all serious, then he laughs and kisses Merlin's face rather sloppily. “Is that you pulling the I'm older and wiser card? Because you're only thirty and not at all wiser.”

Merlin tries hard not to laugh as Arthur pokes his side. “Yeah. Maybe. It's just... I want you to act as though we have a future.”

“Do we?” Arthur asks, rolling to his side and taking Merlin with him. “Or is the world going to die on us?”

“Yes, we do,” Merlin says, with more convinction than he feels. “Professor Kilgharrah says he's working on a long term solution.”

“Well in that case.” Arthur's lips twitch. “I'll ignore the blight and the atmospherical changes and the--”

Merlin kisses him, tongue in his mouth.

Arthur puts his hand on a hip, kneading the bone. “Stay. Stay till tomorrow.”

“I have to drive to base,” Merlin says, gasping when Arthur palms his buttock. “Early tomorrow.”

“Stay.”

Merlin stays. He can never say no to Arthur.

 

*** 

Merlin brings Professor Kilgharrah the files, gives a look at the white board before depositing them on his desk. There are more lines of equations there than there were before the weekend. “You've made some progress, I see.”

Professor Kilgharrah puts down his pen. “Yes. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Merlin raises an eyebrow, shifts from foot to foot. “All right.”

“Please, take a seat.” Kilgharrah gestures at the plush leather chair facing his desk.

Merlin sinks into it, hums a little under his breath.

“As I said,” Kilgharrah begins, “I wanted to discuss the latest developments with you.”

“I'm not a specialist,” Merlin says, his brow puckering. “I don't...” He makes a sign at the whiteboard. “I can't follow the minutiae of all that.”

“You don't need to,” Kilgharrah tells him. “All you need to do is tell me you're on board.”

“On board with what?” Merlin says, fairly sure he must have missed an important part of the conversation between one breath and the next. “I don't get this.”

“With the mission,” Kilgharrah says, as if that's obvious. “You'll take our shuttle out of galaxy.”

“You said the formula wasn't complete.” Merlin gesticulates at the whiteboard. “You said it would take decades for that mission to become a reality.”

“I've changed my tune,” Kilgharrah says. “I now maintain that the formula is near completion and that we're ready to send people into space to find a new habitable planet.”

Merlin tries to understand the new slew of info. “You said nearly.”

“My calculations will be done by the time the mission gets back.”

“That's risky,” Merlin says, considering all angles. “Going off without the certainty of a return.”

“Yes, it is, but then again nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Kilgharrah says, and there's a solemn note to his tone that puts the shivers in Merlin. “We need to send men in space again. We need to find a new home for humanity.” 

Merlin is filled with both hope and dread at the notion. They can't keep to earth. This generation might manage to survive in spite of the repeated agricultural disasters and the increasingly threatening weather phenomena; the next won't survive it. But facing the unknown posits so many questions. There's so much they don't know about the unplumbed depths of outer space. The idea of going in half-cocked ties Merlin up in knots. But he also understands Kilgharrah's need for a solution of some sort.“Yes, we do.”

“And that's why you'll lead the mission.”

Merlin nearly startles out of the chair. “I can't!” He flails his hands about. “I was only supposed to test the pod. I'm not a real astronaut!”

“You are!” Kilgharrah says, his bushy eyebrow shooting upwards. “You have the training.”

“On simulators!” Merlin says. “Nobody has gone into space for more than two decades.”

“Which means that as far afield as I might look, I will never find someone with the experience.”

“Some retired...”

“Someone with the experience and that would pass the physical,” Kilgharrah specifies. “You know how to pilot the pod. You know what to do. Your father taught you.”

“Professor,” Merlin says, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “I'm only a test engineer; I have no real flying hours.”

“Merlin, nobody does,” Kilgharrah says. “Humanity needs saving.”

Merlin bows his head. His shoulders goes up. “How long? How long will it take? I have... I have someone here, his name is Arthur, and...”

“Two years to Saturn,” Kilgharrah says, pointing a crooked finger at the map of the cosmos hanging behind Merlin's shoulders. “You can be put into cryo-sleep on the way there. So by the end of those, you'll be as fit as when you started. Then it's through the wormhole with you.”

“The wormhole.” Merlin's known of the plan before, but put like that, it seems more unfeasible than ever before. 

“The wormhole will be the perfect shortcut to get you to another galaxy,” Kilgharrah says, pushing his glasses up so they don't rest on the tip of his nose anymore. 

Merlin's heard too much about this project not to know about the wormhole. “It may be, but that's all theoretical. We have no empyrical proof. Do we really want to risk it?”

“It works on paper,” Kilgharrah says, ignoring the last part of Merlin's utterance. “It will work in a real life situation too.”

“We can't know that,” Merlin says. “We sent a probe in but we only have limited information.”

“We must hold this hypothesis to be correct.”

Merlin doesn't like dogmas, but he does understand they don't have a lot of options here. “All right, supposing that it is true, that the wormhole carry us to another galaxy. What next?”

“There's a number of planets we sent probes on,” Kilgharrah says. “Your mission will be to establish which planets are habitable, which ones would allow for human settlement.”

“I don't have the knowledge to do that!” Merlin says, the holes in the plan appearing clear. “I'm not a biologist. I'm not even a doctor. I'm an eng--”

“That's why,” Kilgharrah tells him, tipping his head up, “You'll have company for the duration of your mission. Freya is an excellent bio-chemist and has already agreed to going. As has our base astrophysicist, Elyan Smith.”

Merlin opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“It's the only chance we, as a species, have,” Kilgharrah tells him. “As the only pilot we have, our fate, humanity's fate, rests on your shoulders.”

 

**** 

Merlin finds Arthur working in the fields. He's sitting behind the tractor's wheel, driving it along rows of upturned earth. When Arthur makes it close to the edge of the field, Merlin signals to him.

Arthur smiles wide at him, waves. “Come aboard.”

Merlin plonks into the seat next to him. “Hi,” he says, heart strangling as it always does when he sees Arthur, when Arthur grins at him.

“What are you doing here?” Arthur asks, turning the wheel in his hands and starting on another row when the tractor turns. Wild flowers ranging from purple to lavender grow at their edge. Merlin knows they're nothing but weeds, but they're beautiful. Part of the beauty this planet has on offer. If only... “Weren't you supposed to be working at the base today?”

“Yes,” Merlin says, a muscle in his jaw pulling painfully as he locks it. “Yes, I was.”

One eye on the road, one on him, Arthur's says, “You sound strange.”

“Kilgharrah says the mission's close to taking off.” Merlin's mouth curls downwards.

“That's...” Arthur negotiates the tractor over a bump, minimising the jostling. “Wasn't that meant to happen years frrom now?”

“Yes,” says Merlin, running his hands up and down the fabric of his jeans. “But Kilgharrah says he's as good as found a solution to the last equation, so the project's been green-lit.”

“Well, that's good,” Arthur says, though he screws his eyebrows together.

Merlin knows he's looking for the catch, that Merlin's tone made him wary, so Merlin tells him about the rest. “I'm going to pilot the shuttle.”

Arthur kills the engine. “What!” He whips his head around. “You can't! You've never left earth before!”

“I know,” Merlin says, “but none in our generation has, and I'm still young enough to do it.”

“You, you...” Arthur goes red in the face, splutters for a second. “It's...”

“I can make it,” Merlin says, looking down. “I can take the shuttle there and back.”

Arthur's face empties of expression. He sets his jaw. “How long? How long is it gonna take?”

Merlin has tears in his eyes when he says. “Time doesn't work the same way when you take space travel into account. It won't be the same for me and for you.”

“I'm doing physics, Merlin,” Arthur says, his lips barely moving. “How long will this specific mission take?”

“Years.” Merlin tries to put a smile on his lips. A tear comes rolling down, but his smile's in place. “I reckon we might even reduce our age gap to zero by the time I'm back.”

“That's ten years, Merlin.” Arthur looks at the tractor's dash, drums his finger on the wheel. “I thought... Ten years absence in a relationship is... How do we even... How do we weather that?”

“I'm not asking you to wait for me,” Merlin says, looking at Arthur with his heart in his gaze. The words trickle slowly out of him as if they're trying to make it past the knot in his throat. “You're twenty, and you've got all your life ahead of you. I can't ask you that.”

Arthur grunts, crosses his arms and tucks his arms under his armpits. 

“But I'll be selfish,” Merlin says, cocking his head up at the heavens. “And ask you to think of me from time to time, when I'm...”

“Get off,” Arthur snaps. “Get off right now.”

“Arthur--” Merlin grazes Arthur's arm. He's such a coward he can't even touch him knowing he will be rejected. “If I could choose... if there was a choice between my happiness and mankind's...”

“Get off.” Arthur turns his head, and this time there's a cold light in his eyes that kills Merlin inside because he's never expected Arthur to look with such distaste at him. “Just... Just get off.”

Merlin shakes his head, dabs at his eyes with the back on his hand. “Yeah. Okay. All right.”

Merlin hops down, stomps across fresh earth and makes it to the strip of motorway that flanks the field. He wants to be able to not look back, but in the end he does.

Arthur's tractor is already a speck in the distance.

 

***** 

 

Merlin watches the rain slant sideways on its downwards journey. It forms puddles, drums on car roofs, drips down awnings. It shimmers in the glow of a street lamp. 

Floorboards creak, vibrate with someone's weight on them, and the vibration transfers to the soles of Merlin's feet. 

“I thought I could let you go without speaking to you,” Arthur says.

Merlin closes the curtains but doesn't turn around. “What changed your mind?”

“The fact that I'm not even sure I'll see you again,” Arthur says, shifting his weight so the floorboards sigh under him.

“That's encouraging,” Merlin says, his attempt at humour tasting like ashes.

“Look, I don't know what's going to happen out there,” Arthur says and though his voice is steady, it's also lower than it normally is. “I'm not going to take a chance. I'm not.”

Merlin pivots so he's facing Arthur. “In case I die?”

Arthur crosses the room to him, tilts his face up, fitting his palm around Merlin's cheek. “You won't die. You will come back.”

Merlin prides himself on being quite rational, and he thinks he's pretty realistic about the dangers he's going to encounter. He knows the chances are slim, that he's taking a leap into the unknown, but he wants to believe Arthur, that what he feels for him won't be for naught. “I'll try and make it. For you. But I can't guarant--”

Arthur slants his lips across Merlin's, opens his mouth to a slow kiss that burns Merlin right in his heart. “Are you saying you're bad at your job?”

“No?” Merlin says, too steeped in the sensations Arthur's awakening to know what he's saying. 

“Then you'll come back,” Arthur says, pushing him back so he can look him in the eye. “As easy as that.”

 

***** 

 

Merlin sits in front of the console. The dashboard is shiny and looks pristine, but a look at the hardware tells him that it's old and dates back to at least thirty years ago. This is the stuff that was in his father's books. But then again, he tells himself before he starts a system control check, technology hasn't progressed much since.

Bloody blight.

“So are we all set, Merlin?” Freya asks. She's strapped to her seat, all her gear in place. She looks dwarfed by it but she's wearing a brave face. 

“Yes,” Merlin says, before looking to Elyan too. He wants them all to be ready before they start with the procedure. Control will let him handle this. “You, El?”

“Fine,” says Elyan.

“Ready for this,” says Merlin, wrapping his hands around the controls.

 

***** 

 

The shuttle has been in orbit for two days when the time comes. The pods have slid open, their lights blaring a steady neon white, their glaring emptiness sending chills up Merlin's spine. 

They're all wearing their cryo suits. They're all dancing around the capsules, until Elyan extends his bare arm. Freya gives him the Digoxin shot. “Heart rate slowing down,” she says, eyeing the monitor strapped to Elyan's wrist.

“Good,” Elyan says, slipping into the capsule. “See you on the other side then.”

“You sure you're ready?” Freya asks, placing a hand on his chest. “You can have a moment if you want.”

Elyan screws up his face. “No, if I don't do it now, I'll never get the courage up to do it.”

“You'll be fine, you know,” Freya says. “When you're in your cryo-sleep, you will get all your nutrients and muscle stimulation. The only difference is that your metabolic rate will be severely diminished.”

“When they say the sleep of death,” Elyan says, winking at both Freya and Merlin. He is already speaking much slower, his speech slurring. 

“It's nothing like that,” Merlin says. “I'll bet you'll be dreaming.”

“I'd love for that to happen,” Elyan says, screwing his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Who knows whether this form of sleep works like that.”

Freya comes up with the science of it. “With cryostasis, which is a state of induced hypothermia, there won't be much going on.”

“I prefer Merlin's take on it,” Elyan says, before facing away and crossing his arms before his chest. “But I'm ready.”

He reclines into the capsule. Its lid shoots up and covers him. They can only see a partial of his face through the glass.

“Now do me,” Freya tells him, handing him the syringe gun.

Merlin hesitates a second before injecting her. Then he says, “Tell me again why we are doing this?”

“Because we can't be selfish,” says Freya, meeting his eyes. “Sometimes I want to be but that wouldn't be right. And someone has to do it or we're all... “

“Doomed?” Merlin asks, trying on an amused smile that sags as soon as it's out. Somehow he seems unable to try his hand at catastrophic humour these days. Maybe it's the situation. Maybe it's him. Or maybe it's because too much has changed.

“You miss him,” Freya says, immediately picking up on something Merlin thought he'd hidden well. “That's it, isn't it?”

“I..” The truth is he hasn't been aboard ship long and he's already developing habits that are going to hurt him in the long run, like picturing what Arthur's doing and wondering what he's thinking and striking up conversations with him that Arthur can't be there for. He knows doing this will only drive him mad as more time passes. “There's no denying it, is there? The worst of it is that I'll have missed him for a heartbeat and he'll have been missing me for years. How... how do you even cope with that?”

“You don't.”

“Am I wrong for considering these things when I know they're not going to help?”

“That's only human, Merlin.” Freya shakes her head. “I'll tell you this. I was a bit of a loner. That's why I said yes to this mission. But I'm going to miss my brother, and it may sound stupid, but I'm going to miss my cat, too. You're not the only one.”

“I'm glad you're here,” Merlin says, placing his hand on Freya's shoulder and putting some pressure in the squeeze that follows. “And the cat thing? It's not stupid at all.”

“My brother has children,” Freya says and it seems like a non sequitur until she adds, “I tell myself that because of this, they're going to have a future.”

“They are.” Merlin nods his head. “You must believe they are. And I must believe Arthur will forget me and be happy without me.” It hurts thinking that he will. The sense of loss is already keen with him. But what hurts more is the idea that Arthur could throw his life away waiting for his return, which is something that may or may not happen. “I hope he finds... he finds someone that is right for him.”

“Merlin,” Freya starts.

“No one should be made to wait that long, Freya.” Merlin throws his head back and exhales. “It's cruel.”

“Asking you to give him up is equally cruel,” Freya tells him.

“Somebody's got to do it,” Merlin says, with a half-smile he doesn't feel. 

“You're quoting me now,” Freya says. “That's completely unfair.”

“Not really.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Nah.”

She laughs, ducks her head, breathes in. Her expression sobers. “Let's get to work now.”

He injects her, walks her to the pod, watches her disappear into it. The chamber looks larger than it ever has before. At first, Merlin had a hard time adapting to the cramped spaces of the space stations, now he wishes the place were a bit more crowded.

Before he puts himself to sleep, he sits at the console and records a message.

“Hi, Arthur,” he says, swivelling to and fro on his stool. “I, er... I wanted to say hello. Actually there's a lot I want to say but I don't think I have the time--” He huffs a laugh. “Or maybe I have too much of it. I don't know. I just wanted to say that I want you to be all right. I need you to think of yourself first. I need you to live your life. Give it your best shot. Don't wait for me. I've been a selfish bastard doing this, and you shouldn't put up with that at all.” Merlin sighs. “Now I've got to go, because there's a plan.” He huffs. “I just...” Merlin trails off knowing that whatever he says now will only harm Arthur more. “I just hope you're fine, which is probably repetitive, so... Good night, Arthur.”

He turns communications off and prepares himself for the longest sleep of his life.

 

**** 

 

Arthur graduates with a first. He's in his finery, wearing his robe and a nice suit underneath, his shoes polished till they nearly sparkle. He listens to the Vice Chancellor's speech, to all the sentiments expressed in it. It conveys praise for the graduates, but it's still utilitarian in that it exhorts all of them to put their education to good use. They're a hope for mankind. A bright beacon of knowledge waiting to be put at the world's service. What's left unsaid is that they're likely to be the last generation who will be able to do this. 

As they had promised, his father and Morgana attend the ceremony. They nod in places, look to him with pride in their eyes. Arthur's not sure it's warranted, that he's done anything great today. He's kept doing his duty, continuing to follow the beaten track as if nothing momentous was going on, or as if his life hadn't changed at all. As if there wasn't a fucking great hole in it.

Which is not true. 

If everything was normal, their planet wouldn't be slowly imploding. If everything was normal he'd be building something for future generations. He'd be paving the way for them. If everything was okay, the man he loves would be here with him today.

But he can't take this into consideration or he'll break down. And it would be horrible manners of him. It would surely mess with his friends' day. And it's their big day today, too. Today is the day they forget about the impending apocalypse. So Arthur goes through the motions, acts the way he should, and says the right things in the right places.

When Arthur takes his parchment, he smiles his family's way, holds the document up. It's not even the real thing. It's just a certificate, while the original document will be released to him later. But it's expected so he lifts it in his fist, upholds it like a trophy, though he thinks it's anything but. Merlin'd tell him off for being so nihilist about his achievements, but then again, Merlin's not there, so Arthur can think what he wants while he still strives to please his family.

He takes photos with Father and Morgana, with his mates from uni, and engages in a spot of horseplay with them. 

Considering the limitations destiny dished up for them, everything's as it should be. But he can't help but think of what falls short of what this should be. He can't help imagining how it would be if Merlin were there. And then for a moment, Arthur positively fancies he sees him. Him with his big smile, his eyes wet with pride on Arthur's behalf. 

And that's what hurts the most, knowing that Merlin would be doing all that if he hadn't been tasked with an impossible mission. 

Arthur's eyes mist up, he blinks and Merlin's gone. Arthur opens his mouth to say something, be it a please stay, a vocalisation of rage, or a vow of love. But when he realises there are people around him, he clamps his mouth shut.

He's posing with Morgause for a ritual photo, when Professor Kilgharrah comes up to him. Arthur poses smiles so that his happiness is recorded for the camera, then takes a walk with the Professor. 

“You did well,” the old man says, using an opener lots of people have gone for today.

“Thank you,” Arthur says, keeping up a polite front even if he doesn't understand how the man could have had the nerve to come here, when he's the one who sent Merlin on the mission that lost him to Arthur. It certainly takes some chutzpah. “I struggled with graduating according to schedule because of the farm, but in the end I did.”

“That's because you're a brilliant student,” Professor Kilgharrah says. Arthur's never attended one of his courses so Arthur doesn't get on what basis Kilgharrah can say that. “You should opt for post-graduate studies.”

“No.” Arthur shakes his head. “Food sources are shrinking. I've got a family to think about. Father is not getting any younger and Morgana--”

“You could benefit them much more if you continued your studies.”

Arthur scoffs. “I don't think so. What they need is food on their table.”

“Food isn't necessarily what they need the most.”

Arthur kicks at a shrivelled conker; the gesture only partly diffuses his resentment. “I hardly think so.”

“They need a chance, Arthur,” Kilgharrah says. He sounds as though he's intoning the words to an epic. “They need to think they have a future. That's the key to happiness.”

“We need to take life as it comes,” Arthur says, repeating the mantra he's lived by ever since he was a child. Kilgarrah's words are partly ridiculous and partly convincing. Arthur can see how Merlin fell for it. But he must not.“Thinking of the future when we don't have one won't help anyone.”

“That's not what humanity is about though,” Kilgharrah says, slipping his hands into the pockets of his old-fashioned woollen trousers. “Humanity is about hope.”

“Not in the face of this.” Arthur looks to the far horizon.

“This is the very moment to nurture hope,” the Professor says, slowing his pace as they come upon an incline. “I know I do.”

“Then I envy you,” Arthur hears himself say, though he hadn't meant to concede this much, not to this man, whom Arthur can't but think of as the one who tempted Merlin away. And yet...

“No need to envy me,” Kilgharrah says, stopping and angling his body towards him. “You could be me, do what I'm doing.”

“It'd take a lifetime of research.”

“You could be the one to bring Merlin back,” says Kilgharrah. “You could be the one who makes his mission meaningful.”

 

***** 

 

Arthur's putting the finishing touches to the last chapter of his thesis when Mab walks in. “Oh, you're using the study room,” she says, making her footfall lighter.

Arthur looks up from his laptop's monitor. It's an old piece of junk and its glare hurts his eyes. “I'm nearly finished for today. You can have the room in a few.”

Mab sits close to him. “I'll try and be as quite as a mouse while you finish.”

“You don't need to,” Arthur says, squeezing the bridge of his nose and blinking rapidly. “I'm just doing cosmetic changes at this point.”

“You've been the quickest of us at finishing.”

“I have cause,” Arthur says, hitting backspace a few times.

“We all have.”

Arthur sinks back against his chair, turns his head so he's looking at Mab. “I didn't mean to say I was the only one who wants to make a difference.”

“I know,” Mab says, placing her hand on top of his, quickly squeezing his fingers before dropping it. “We all know.”

“Thank you for being understanding.”

Mab grins, breathes a little through her mouth. “Would you like... Would you like to go and grab a coffee sometimes?”

Arthur sits up straighter. “Mab.”

“I just thought that maybe...” She hesitates and Arthur guesses what she's implying. “You're always so alone. I mean when it really comes down to it. And that's not right. We only have this one life.”

“I know.”

“I mean.” Mab bites her lips. “You need someone to be there for you for the important things. There comes a point when...”

“Distance is like death?” Arthur says, his lips curling at the side. 

“I wouldn't have said anything like that,” Mab says, casting her head down.

“No.” But Arthur knows that's what everybody is thinking, the reason why everybody's pitying him. “But it's the truth, isn't it? I don't even know if he's alive.”

“Arthur, that's not what I meant at all,” says Mab. “It's just that... I wanted to say that you have a right to live your life, not to put it on hold. It would be sad if you felt you had to. But I didn't mean to say he's dead. I hope he's alive and helping save us all. But I--”

“Mab.” Arthur smiles, and this time it's sincere. “I know all that. It's just that I don't feel like I can.”

“I get that,” Mab says, kissing his cheek. “I get that and I respect that.”

That night when he's at home, Arthur records a message for Merlin. “Hi,” he says, as he settles on his swivel chair after he's adjusted his webcam. “I – uhm – don't know if you'll get this. If your radio's still working... I don't know whether I'm talking to myself here or not, but in case I'm not...” He looks around, wets his lips, fastens his eyes on the camera. “I wanted you to know I'm so close to being awarded my MsC. It's... a big step. Kilgharrah says I should go for a PhD once I'm done. He's as good as offered me a place on his team.” Arthur swallows. “I thought that was the last thing I wanted. That I hated him. But I don't. I want to do it. I want to help with your mission. I want to bring you back. So, please, just stay alive. I'm sure even you can manage that. To stay alive...”

When Arthur's voice breaks, he stops the recording.

 

**** 

Arthur's a year into his PhD, when he sleeps with someone else. He doesn't wake up with the intention to do so. He doesn't even enter the bar meaning to hook up. But the man smiles at him and the way he does that pierces deep into Arthur's soul. He doesn't take the man home. He tells him it's because he's got books, papers and boxes strewn everywhere. He swears it's a pig sty. The man pretends to believe him, but Arthur knows he doesn't. 

He follows the man to his place. Doesn't ask his name. He kisses him shallowly, doesn't intend to taste his mouth. He bites and scores his hands down his spine. He takes him in his mouth and makes him come with hard sucks. He orgasms when the man takes him in his hand. One or two rough touches is all that it takes for him to spill.

“Wow, it looks like it's been awhile,” the man says.

“Yes,” Arthur acknowledges as his breath goes back to normal. “Four years and counting...”

The man splutters, rakes a hand across his mouth. “Well, that's impressive.”

Arthur doesn't mean to explain himself, so he stands even though the bed's warm and the air is cold.

“Hey, I didn't mean to chase you away with that remark,” the man says, rubbing a hand down his belly. “I just think it's crazy, you know, a handsome man like you.”

“It's a... peculiar situation,” Arthur says, wanting to keep it vague. There's no way he's going to unburden himself to this stranger. It's perhaps wrong of him to have taken and to want to give nothing in return, but he doesn't feel like sharing. “You don't want to know about it.”

The man grimaces. “Probably not. But if you want company, you could give me your number.”

“I have someone,” Arthur says, even if he doesn't even know whether that holds true anymore. 

The man arches an eyebrow. “I'm not sure I get you anymore.”

Arthur starts pulling on his clothes. “You don't need to.”

“So that's a no to the number then.”

That night Arthur sits in front of his webcam. It doesn't work well anymore and devices such as this are a luxury he can no longer afford. The uni has one but he won't use it for a personal conversation. Still his own equipment is going to last him long enough to record this. 

“Hi, Merlin,” Arthur says, and even doing that, letting his name roll of his tongue, is a punch to the gut. He fishes for something to say, tries with a normal opening, though he feels anything but normal. “I'm... I'm doing well. I'm healthy. Father and Morgana are okay though Father's health's declining. I wish he had more nutritious food to eat so that he could get stronger.” 

Arthur ducks his head. He doesn't know why he's talking about this. Of course he cares about his family, is pained by how he can't improve their lot. But that wasn't at the forefront of his mind when he started speaking. He doesn't know how many shots he has at talking to Merlin. Considering the state of technology on Earth, this might be the last one. He'd better say what he really should say.

“I don't think I'm doing okay. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing actually.” He laughs though the sound's soon choked by a sob. “I had a speech full of explanations about why... why I did it. But that'd be me trying to get you to forgive me when I don't really deserve it. The corollary.” Arthur shake his head. “It doesn't matter.” Arthur looks into the camera. “I slept with someone else. I wanted it to be you. But I slept with someone else.”

 

**** 

Arthur's been on Professor Kilgharrah's team for two years, when he gets the news. At first he doesn't want to believe it. The possibility doesn't really register. There's so much work that still needs to be done. Reams of calculations still need to be finished. The space craft the Earth's population will need for relocation still needs to be given its finishing touches. And the world is in too much of a state of chaos for them to ignore how much they need to complete the equation. 

So when he storms into the hospital, it's probably because he wants the doctors to tell him it's all a joke. He wants them to change their minds and say, “No, actually, you're right and everything's going to be fine.”

But that's not what they tell him. What they tell him is, “His heart has been weakened by the coronary, and the patient's general condition is not what we would wish for.”

“But he'll recover?” Arthur asks, wanting to grab the doctor by the lapels of his white coat. That he refrains is quite a feat on his part. “The Professor will be alright?”

“I can't guarantee that,” the doctor says, his voice much gentler, switching his bedside manner on. “You'll understand my position. I can't promise you that. The Professor is already an old man. If we had the tech we once had.... then maybe--”

Arthur doesn't listen on. He visits Professor Kilgharrah in his hospital room. It's patently clear Kilgharrah has taken a hit. He looks wan and shrunken. His eyes have sunk in their sockets and become much less alert. His frame appears much smaller, like it's dried up. Still, Arthur wants to hope. 

He brings a chair close to the bed, waits for the Professor to fix his eyes on him. 

“Young Pendragon,” he says, as if Arthur was still the boy he first met when Merlin's mission was still very much up in the air and not a man of twenty-nine. “I see you've come to say goodbye.”

Arthur takes the Professor's hand. “I have done no such thing. You're going to be fine, sir.”

“Oh, I'm old enough to understand that my time is coming, young man,” Kilgharrah says in a much feebler voice than the burr Arthur's used to. “But that's how life works.”

“You've still got so much to do,” Arthur protests. It's selfish. He knows it. He wants for the Professor to do what he promised. He wants him to put everything all right. But he also wishes to give him purpose, so the old man won't give up on his life. He's always had so much fight in him. “There's the equation to finish, all the...”

Kilgharrah makes a small noise in his throat. “I could live to be two hundred, and I still wouldn't be able to solve it.”

“What,” Arthur says, nearly sliding off his chair. “You're nearly finished. I saw your progress.”

“I progressed.” Kilgharrah coughs. “But I won't be able to find a solution.”

Arthur helps Kilgharrah drink, then says. “I don't get it. The calculations are sound.”

“Up to a point,” Kilgharrah rasps out. “But I got stalled years ago. Even before I sent Merlin off on his mission.”

The back of Arthur's chair impacts the ground. “What... You sent him even if you knew you couldn't bring him back. Or relocate the world's population to another galaxy? You sent him on a dud mission!”

“I--” Kilgharrah follows Arthur's movements with his eyes. “I thought I would get out of the quagmire I'd fallen into. That I'd stumble on the solution. But it didn't work out. And by then it was too late.”

Arthur turns around, presses a hand against his mouth. It's like losing him all over again. It's worse even because back then, the naïve part of him had thought he'd see Merlin again soon. Yes, the words ten years had been very present to him. But at the time he'd believed Merlin was so brilliant, he'd have made it back sooner than that. He supposes he was stupidly young and incredibly in love. Now he knows Merlin will never make it back. That there's no hope for humanity. No hope for his father and his sister. He'll never see Merlin again. Even if by any chance he is alive, eons will forever part them.

“Please forgive me,” Kilgharrah says.

 

**** 

What remains of the faculty hires Arthur as Kilgharrah's replacement at the head of the Dragon Project. He's only a lowly researcher, but professors with the right qualifications are scarce these days because most people are focusing their efforts on fields other than academia. Arthur was always the closest to Kilgharrah and to the project. He knows it inside out. Besides, this is as much Kilgharrah's appointment as it is the university's.

So Arthur's the one leading the team now, putting in office hours and slaving over that damn equation. 

He looks at the numbers from every possible angle, considers the data from a myriad stand points. And the more he looks at it, the more he convinces himself there's no solution.

“I can't pull off what Kilgharrah couldn't,” Arthur says, lobbing a pencil at the wall.

“My, my, brother,” says Morgana, poking her head into his office. “And here I thought you had it in you to surpass the old codger.”

“The old codger was a genius,” Arthur says, leaning on his desk and burying his hands in his hair. 

“One who never did what he promised.”

Arthur has told himself that many times. It doesn't help build his confidence up. “I can't do it. There's probably no actual solution to the equation.”

“So you're telling me that we're all doomed?” Morgana makes a wry face. 

“Pretty much.”

Morgana pats her belly. “Sorry to break it to you, kiddo, your uncle here's telling me you have no future.”

Arthur's eyes widen. “How?”

“The usual way,” Morgana says. “Mordred will stay around for it. He says he wants to get to know his child.”

“Well, congratulations, I think.” Arthur opens and closes his mouth several times. “I mean it's fantastic!”

“Not really,” says Morgana, rising, her fingers closing around the strap of her shoulder-bag as though she's preparing to leave. “Not if this baby stands no chance and has no one to help him.”

Before Arthur can formulate an answer, Morgana has left in a high dudgeon.

 

**** 

 

The first thing Merlin does after he's woken from his cryo sleep, and before entering the wormhole is listen to the messages from earth the space station's computer has stored. He turns the monitor on, and settles in his chair. The first message comes from Kilgharrah. In the vid, Kilgharrah details the mission for them again, wishes them good luck and tells them they are mankind's hope.

The second message Merlin gets is from Arthur. His face takes up a large part of the screen. He's smiling though there are dark circles under his eyes. “Hi, Merlin, today--” Arthur loosens the tie he's wearing. “I graduated. I... I had a chat with your Professor Kilgharrah after the ceremony. He says I should continue my studies.” Arthur ducks his head, shakes it. “I don't know. I mean there's so much to think about. The farm and my family that doing a post grad course seems like a waste of time.” Arthur fiddles with the loosened knot of his tie, takes it off. “But there's something he said, something that's made me think. I know, I know. I swore I wouldn't trust him. But I don't know. I think I want to do it. Maybe it's all going to waste but if there's a chance... I'd like to be the one who brings you back.”

Merlin is knuckling his eyes against tears and fighting a smile at the same time. His complete emotional breakdown is interrupted, when Freya tells him. “Merlin, are you ready? We should, you know, get into that huge black hole?”

Merlin pauses the video. Freezes the screen on Arthur's smile. “Yeah,” he says, picking himself up so he can go over to the main console. “Coming.”

 

***** 

 

Elyan paces to and fro. “Wow, I can't feel my legs anymore. Actually, I'm not even sure I can feel the rest of me.”

Merlin doesn't think he's any the better off. “Well, at least we're through.”

“That certainly was the weirdest experience of my life,” Freya says, hugging her stomach.

“Agreed,” both Elyan and Merlin say.

“We should decide which planet we are going to investigate first,” Freya says, reminding them of the mission, their duty. “We have a few options.”

“Mercia is out,” Elyan says, flipping through the sheets pasted to a clipboard. “It's too far away from us. It would take us years to get there.”

“Agreed,” Freya says, nodding slowly. “We need to look for a planet that can sustain human life, but one that's closer than Mercia.”

Merlin listens carefully. He doesn't want to butt in because he's not an expert in these fields. 

“Northumbria then,” Elyan says. “Considering the data we got from the probe, it could be doable.”

“The mean temperatures registered do allow for human life,” says Freya, nodding slowly. “And the air composition isn't too dissimilar from Earth's. Probes have found Nitrogen, Oxygen and Argon in quantities such as to be breathable by humans. Northumbrian atmosphere is heavier on Helium than ours, but we can deal with that.”

“There's only one catch,” Elyan says, massaging his temples. “Northumbria's gravitational field is very, very strong.”

“Which means that time there would run much more slowly.” Freya looks from Elyan to Merlin and back. “It's a risk.”

“How much slower are we talking about?” Merlin says, activating one of the monitors so he can read the data himself. He may not be an astrophysicist, but he needs to see this with his own eyes. A slew of data unfurls before him and Merlin tries and calculate. “Are we talking... is it a year per hour?”

“Yes,” Elyan says, “well a year, two months.”

“No.” Merlin purses his lips together. “We're going somewhere else.”

“Merlin,” Elyan says, face taking on a compassionate cast, “I understand you have someone waiting for you on Earth, but this planet looks habitable. We ought to try.”

Merlin shakes his head. “I want to see Arthur again with everything that I have, but that's not the only reason I'm against Northumbria. I mean when I accepted this mission it was with the knowledge I might not come back. Hell, we're on a small space station hurtling through an unknown galaxy. I know we might not make it. So, no, I'm not thinking only of myself when objecting. But what we're trying to do here is save the people back on Earth.”

“And if we spend too much time on Northumbria,” Freya says, “there will be no humanity to save. Too much time will have elapsed in Earth terms and they'll have died out.”

“What if we cut short the time we spend on the planet?” Elyan says.

“It must be a quick in and out.” Merlin says, still not liking this in the least. “And we make that time count.”

While Elyan checks over incoming data Merlin is the one tasked with piloting the pod that will take him and Freya on Northumbria. Piloting the module is no easy task. It's a small piece of space craft and most of its systems are sent haywire when they hit the Northumbrian stratosphere. Merlin's console starts blinking red and most of the lights illuminating the control panel go off. “Oh not now,” Merlin says, hitting the console. “We haven't come this far to crash on Northumbria.”

Freya, looking green about the gills, says, “I never trained for this.”

“Switching to manual,” Merlin says, hoping he doesn't kill them.

The pod shakes and rattles as they plunge into Northumbria's atmosphere. They lose a stabiliser and part of the panelling covering the aft fuselage. They fly upside down, rocketing downwards at such speed the fuselage sings. The onboard computers signal that some parts of it are on fire.

A wall of air pushes them against their seats and then forward against their shoulder straps. Merlin feels like his whole body has been slapped. His heart thunders in his chest and feels as if it's about to burst apart. His head gets heavy with blood. He's losing depth of vision, too, and has to blink to keep a clear image of the controls before him.

Jaw clenched he looks to the side and sees that Freya's eyes have rolled back in their sockets. He's a moment away from throwing in the towel, too, when he hears Arthur's voice telling him, “Are you giving up already, Merlin?”

“No,” Merlin says, pulling the rotation control stick towards him. “No, I'm not.”

They land with a loud crash and though the computers signal damages to the service module as well as to the stabilisers, it's nothing that will put the pod out of commission.

Once they're out of the landing module, they can't see much of the planet. They seem to have landed on some kind of mountain range because they're surrounded by looming walls of rock. 

Hand-held device in hand, Freya says, “The air here is not breathable, but that's not to say it won't be at a lower altitude.”

“So we have to find a way down,” Merlin says, even if he's extremely conscious of the time passing while they establish what to do.

“Yes,” says Freya, swiping at her hand-held. “There's a plateau we might test but it's twenty miles from here.”

“Twenty miles.” Merlin locks his jaw. “That's hours of walking. That's years on earth, Freya.”

“Unless,” Freya says, looking up, eyebrow cocked. “We go through the mountains.”

“How?” Merlin asks, not sure he's got it.

“My readings tell me there's a cave,” Freya says, pointing ahead of her. “A mile or so from here. It cuts through the mountain range. It'll save us hours.”

“Let's go through the cave then.”

The cave has an arched entrance. The light falling in from it shows jagged rocks walls the colour of sunlit sand, natural arches of rock that have moulded themselves in fantastical shapes, coruscations and striations that form natural wreaths and friezes. Beyond that point it gets really dark though and without their suit's lights they wouldn't have been able to proceed. 

They walk for nearly an hour without saying a word to each other, concentrating on accomplishing their mission, their breath coming so fast their helmets get fogged up.

“Do you think,” Freya asks between one deep breath and the next, “that this might be it? I mean if the air's breathable on lower ground, then we might have found our new home.”

“I'd love for that to be true.” Merlin thinks of showing Arthur a new planet, a place where he and his family can thrive. He pictures him exploring this place as Merlin himself is doing and his heart does miss a beat. “But I don't want to let myself hope.”

“Isn't that what we're here for?” Freya says, proceeding down the tunnel so they can now see the exit. “Nurturing hope?”

The tremor starts under the soles of Merlin's feet and grows and grows until Merlin feels like he's riding a wave. As the rumble increases in pitch, pieces of the wall take to crumbling down.

“Freya, make for the mouth of the cave!” Merlin yells as he takes off at a run.

The earth heaves all around him, under him. Slabs of rock tumble down. Walls of dust rise up as boulders topple from the apex of the tunnel, barely missing them. 

Merlin is almost at the confluence of the cave when two large chunks of rock detach themselves from its entry arch, cutting off light, plunging them in darkness, burying them in.

Merlin shouts, hits at the wall with his fist, tries to shoulder his way out. Nothing happens, not a boulder moves. Merlin screams his lungs off, curses, calls for Arthur, for help. His mouth open in an exhalation of pain, he claws at the wall till his suit rips and blood cakes his fingers.

 

***** 

 

“What the hell happened?” Elyan asks, when Freya and Merlin make it back to the space station.

Freya stabs Merlin with a syringe in the chest and Merlin's heart stops beating so shallowly Merlin fears it'll stop. He crumples down all the same. 

“We took a short cut through a cave,” Freya says, kneeling next to Merlin and massaging Merlin's hands. They're blue and red in alternate patches. He can't feel them. “There was a cave in and we had to dig through rock with our hands. Merlin's gloves tore. He's hypothermic.”

“How long,” Merlin mumbles. “How long were we on... on Northumbria?”

“Four years in earth time,” Elyan says as he rifles the cabinets for a blanket he ends up wrapping around Merlin shoulders. “I was about... I was about to abort the mission.”

Merlin closes his eyes, leans his head against one of the partition walls, wishes the cold had taken his life. 

“Is Northumbria good for human settling?” Elyan asks, kneading Merlin's shoulders.

“No,” Freya shakes his head. “Even at lower levels the air composition doesn't change. Northumbria can't sustain human life. Not with the technology we have.”

 

***** 

Later, after his body temperature has settled and after they've staved off the worst symptoms of his hypothermia, Merlin settles in front of his monitor and starts watching his video messages. There's one from Kilgharrah, in which the old man spouts mathematics and philosophy at him, and ends up questioning man's ability to find the answer to the universal questions they're asking. Merlin fast-forwards though a lot of that and catches only snatches of what Kilgharrah has to say. When he gets to the second video in the row, he smiles.

He loses the smile though when Arthur says, “I don't think I'm doing okay. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing actually.” 

Merlin leans forward in his seat, caresses the monitor as if, instead of cool glass, he could touch warm skin. 

Merlin frowns when Arthur says, “I had a speech full of explanations about why... why I did it. But that'd be me trying to get you to forgive me when I don't really deserve it. The corollary.” 

Merlin doesn't understand what Arthur means by that, he just wants his face to lose that frown. He wants for him not to look so wretched. He wants to be able to be there and pull Arthur to him, so he can help him.

Arthur gives a snappy shake of his head. “It doesn't matter.” Arthur looks into his webcam but somehow Merlin feels as though it's him Arthur's looking at. “I slept with someone else. I wanted it to be you. But I slept with someone else.”

Merlin buries his head between his knees, bites down on a sob. Though it's most certainly a metaphor, his heart feels as though it does break, as if it's straining in his chest and being choked up by its own strings. It takes a while for the sensation to subside. When it does, he says, “It doesn't matter. I understand.” Time is playing with them after all. “It's okay.”

 

**** 

 

Cumbria is a vast desert of a planet. Dunes roll and ripple, shine red and ochre as far as the eye can see. Rock formations the same russet as the sand loom jagged across the horizon line. Otherwise nothing interrupts the vista. It's a never-ending wilderness where no plant lives.

That doesn't mean that this planet couldn't host human beings. Human tribes have lived at the fringes of deserts for millennia and nothing says people can't live in an environment such as the one that presents itself to them now. It would probably be hostile, but with the aid of technology they could attempt modifying it to suit human needs. They can import living organisms; shape surface topography. They only need the basics allowing for life.

“Readings?” Elyan asks Freya.

“The air contains Argon, Nitrogen and most importantly oxygen,” says Freya, her voice raising just a little as she conveys the last item.

“You mean humans could leave here without detriment to their health?” Merlin asks, not daring to hope that this is it, that, however bleak the landscape, they have found a solution. 

“I think s--” 

The howling wind drowns out Freya's voice and before they know it the gale raises whirlpools of dust that spin in rapid circles. And move onwards.

“Massive sandstorm,” shouts Elyan as they watch the sky bleed dark red.

Merlin has no idea whether they can weather this storm or not but he's not willing to risk it. “Back to the pod,” he shouts, waving his arms about. 

Clods of dirt and sand fly up and obscure the visor of their helmets, forcing them to slow down to wipe them. Sand slams at their suits, crusts them with a patina of granules, knocks them about. The force of the wind pounds it at them while at the same time it forces them back and away from the pod.

“We need to power through!” Merlin shouts, not sure his suit's wiring is still working and that he can radio the others. “We need to get on!”

From the corner of his eye Merlin sees Elyan sprint forward. “Run with the wind,” he hears him yell. “Run with the wind!”

When Merlin swerves to the side he notices that he's no longer running counter to the force of the gale, but in the same direction as it. This gives him speed. Elyan's right. This is what they should be doing!

He's almost reached Elyan, when he hears Freya shout, “The sand! The sand!”

At first it makes no sense but then he turns around and sees a wall of dark sand dog Freya's footsteps. There's something about the sand that looks ominously different. It's not just its colour. It's its consistency and the way it spirals onwards. 

“The sand's eating away at my suit!” Freya shrieks. “It burns! It's burning, Merlin! It burns!”

Merlin doesn't think twice about it; he doubles back and runs towards Freya. 

Elyan yells, “Merlin, you can't. She's lost. Think of the mission!”

But Merlin doesn't listen. Can't. It's the three of them. It's all that they have. They can't lose one of their party. They can't. If they don't stick out for each other, what sense does it all make?

He can't see because mounds of rotating sand whip against his helmet, caking it all up. Nevertheless, he runs blind, stumbles, propels himself forward in the direction Freya last was. His respirator clogs, stops working. He shouts after Freya, does it again and again.

A lick of fire gnaws at his hand and then he knows it, he's where the dark sand's at. He sticks his hand in. It burns. It's like the skin's being flayed off his knuckles, but he keeps his hand there, wails, grits his teeth. “Freya, take my hand!”

Her fingers close around his.

He hauls her bodily forwards and runs back in the direction of the pod.

 

**** 

Freya sits on the medical bay bunk. The skin of her left calf is raised in red welts and has partly come off. The back of her arm is in the same condition. The area around her left shoulder blade is showing some blistering too. She's otherwise fine. 

“I'm going to bandage your wrist now,” Merlin says, undoing a roll of gauze. “And then we'll be finished and you'll be as good as new.”

“You haven't done your hand yet,” Freya says, licking her lips. “You've put ointment and gaze on my burns but have done nothing for yourself.”

Merlin just slapped on a piece of bandage on his burn before slipping gloves on, that's true. But he doesn't feel like doing anything more than that and frankly he doesn't want to think about it. About how he nearly lost Freya. “I'm fine,” says Merlin, taking her hand up gently. “It's a minor burn. I'm fine.”

Freya watches as Merlin puts fresh ointment on Freya's hand. “I haven't thanked you yet. If you hadn't come back for me, I would be dead.”

“Don't be an idiot,” Merlin says, wrapping lengths of bandage around her palm. “Of course I went back. I couldn't have let you die.”

“You shouldn't have,” Freya says, dropping her eyes. “It was my fault. I didn't run fast enough.”

“You ran as fast as you could,” Merlin tells her, tying the bandage with a little clip. “Elyan and I were just lucky we weren't around the dark sand.”

“Yet when I saw it coming, I should have moved faster.”

“You couldn't have known that sand was full of Chlorine Triflouride,” Merlin says, hanging his hands now he's done patching Freya up. “None of us could have known. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Freya jumps off the bunk. She takes a step close to him so he can feel the tension radiating off her, breathes hard, kisses his neck where it cords. She skims her lips under his ear, and fits them to his mouth. 

He opens up, touches her tongue with his, lets the warmth of her touch diffuse into him. It's good that way. Nobody's touched him with such joy in a while and the warmth of her, the love that exhales off her, fans his heart into beating again. 

He presses her hard against the wall, lets his lips cushion hers so that he's kissing her a myriad times, shakes when her hand slips under his tee and splays wide at the bottom of his spine.

It's soft and small and dainty. It's not... He stops. “We're friends, Freya,” he says in a strained voice he doesn't recognise as his. “We're friends.”

 

**** 

 

They get the last set of equations via the Dragonlord's mainframe. The equation that will allow them to return home, the one that will make the relocation of the earth's population possible. 

When he sees the strings of numbers, Merlin knows this is not Professor's Kilgharrah's solution. There's a simple linearity to them that has nothing in common with Kilgharrah's quirkiness of execution. “Arthur,” he says, and it doesn't matter he's actually talking to a machine. He's as moved as if Arthur himself was there and talking to him. “I know this is you. And I promise, I'll make it work. I'll find you a planet.”

 

**** 

 

“We don't have much fuel left,” Elyan announces during one of their group debriefs. “And we haven't found a habitable planet yet.”

“There's still two within range we can choose from;” Freya says, pointing at the screen Elyan activated. “Strathclyde and Wessex.”

Merlin knows all the readings by heart. “We can make it to the closest planet and return to earth no problem.”

“But the closest planet is Strathclyde,” Freya says, her eyebrows nearly meeting. “And it's got the least promising of data readings. Its atmosphere doesn't shield it properly from cosmic rays. Wessex has organic carbon.”

“Merlin.” Elyan notches an eyebrow. “You're the pilot and mission leader. Up to you.”

“It's easy then,” Merlin says, his voice as steady as it can be. “We make for Wessex.”

“Wessex it is,” says Elyan, with more enthusiasm than he's displayed in quite a while.

 

**** 

The pod lands in the middle of a green meadow crossed by a river sparkling with white foam. The grass reaches their knees and is bedecked with brine. The earth is soft under their boots, yielding, a warm brown colour. The sky above shines blue and emerald and purple like an eternal aurora Borealis. Mountains ring the vast expanse of rolling countryside. They're covered with growths Merlin can call nothing else but... trees.

“I'm tempted to take my helmet off,” Merlin says.

“Don't,” Freya says, mouth drawn thin. “Not till we have all the readings.”

As Freya executes test upon test Merlin wanders around. The soil takes the shape of his soles. The grass bends at his passage. The sky changes colour and bleeds a deeper green, stars twinkling up above. “Is this the local version of night?” he wonders aloud. As he makes it to a turf covered area, he sees a caterpillar, or something very similar to it, slither forward. 

He gasps, shakes his head, smiles so wide his cheeks hurt. He nearly cries at the beauty of it.

He radios the others. “There's life here. There's life!”

“Merlin, we have most of the readings,” Freya says. “Air composition is compatible with human life. Actually, it's pretty close to earth's.”

“Barometric pressure is lower than optimal,” Elyan says, “but higher than it is on a tall mountain.”

“Gravity is 9.507!” 

“Which means I can take my suit off?” Merlin says, another grin spreading on his face.

“No, you clot,” Freya says. “It means we've found a new home.”

 

***** 

 

Merlin flies the space station back to the brink of the wormhole, then presses the detach button.

“What are you doing?” Freya radios him from the crew module.

“Getting you home, Freya,” says Merlin, checking the detachment progress. “We have little fuel, remember? Less weight, less fuel expenditure.”

“Merlin, you can't do that,” says Elyan. “You can't sacrifice yourself!”

Merlin's module frees itself from the bulk of the orbiting station. “I can. The people on earth deserve a chance. If you don't make it back, they'll never get the news.”

“We could have ditched the equipment,” Freya cries, and the sound brings tears to Merlin's eyes. “Damn you, Merlin.”

“Too insignificant a weight loss,” Merlin mumbles. “A landing would have been uncertain.”

“Merlin!”

Merlin thinks of Arthur, of the chance he and his family now have, and can't bring himself to regret his decision. “It's for the best.” He lets go of the controls. 

“What, what does that mean?” Elyan says.

“Nothing,” Merlin says, swallowing against the pain in his chest. “Nothing. Good luck, guys.”

Merlin turns the radio off and silence envelops him.

 

***** 

 

Arthur is working at his computer when one of his assistants barges in, yelling, “Dr Pendragon, The Dragonlord has come into orbit.”

Arthur drops the pencil he's been holding. “The Dragonlord?”

“Yes, sir,” Daegal tells him. “It's their signal loud and clear.”

“It's impossible,” Arthur says, shaking his head. “It's been too long.”

Daegal raises his shoulders. “Unless our computers have all finally bit the dust, it's them, Dr Pendragon.”

Arthur is there when The Dragonlord lands. When the hatch to the core module opens, his heart climbs into his throat. When he sees Doctor Waters and Doctor Smith emerge from it, his knees nearly give.

They've made it. Against all expectations, they've made it. Those in the know had given them up for dead years ago, and yet here they are. All in one piece. 

Everything around Arthur reels. The world becomes a blur, a juxtaposition of colours blowing up before his retinas. He can't see Doctor Waters, only hear her. He can't make out Doctor Smith, only pick out his footfall. He splays a hand against the wall for support. Closes his eyes, breathing in and out. He waits, fixes his eyes on that bloody hatch. Nobody else comes out. His heartstrings get torn. He thinks he leans against the wall behind him.

It's Doctor Waters saying, “They tell me you're Professor Kilgharrah's replacement,” that snaps Arthur's back to attention.

There's still a massive hollow inside him – which is weird considering how he thought he'd given up hope long before this – but he manages to go through the motions. “Yes, I'...” He knows his own fucking name, shit. “I'm Doctor Arthur Pendragon. I lead the project now.”

Freya Waters frowns. “How... How long have we been away?”

“Fifteen years,” Arthur says, though he could probably also tell her how many days and hours they've been absent. “You've been gone for fifteen years.”

Freya cups her mouth, lets out a little whimper, but nods. “Is my brother...”

“The families have all kept in touch,” Arthur says, placing a hand on her shoulder. “They're fine.”

“Thank God.” A big breath rattles out of her.

Arthur doesn't want to ask. There can be no other explanation for Merlin's absence after all and he doesn't want to have it confirmed. But he can't live without this piece of knowledge. He can't not know, even if it kills any of his remaining capacity to feel, be a proper human being. He means to ask a fully grammatical question, but in the end all that comes out is... “Merlin?”

Freya sobs, and it's Elyan, who's just come up to them, that says, “Merlin knew we had very good news to impart to you and that it was vital we told you we've found a habitable planet. He chose to stay behind so we could have enough fuel to make it to Earth.”

“He sacrificed himself,” Arthur says, drawing the only possible conclusion. It makes sense. Merlin's entirely the type. And though Arthur's told himself that Merlin was gone, that he'd never see him again, the confirmation hurts like a punch to the heart. “Of course he did.”

“I'm so, so sorry Doctor Pendragon,” says Freya. “He... he always spoke of you. He did what he did out of great love.”

Arthur doesn't hear most of it. His ears are ringing too loudly for him to make out every single word she utters. “I...” He loses track of what he wants to say. He feels emptiness eat at his brain. There's nothing, nothing but a pitch of darkness that whirls around him. He nearly wants to fall into it and be done. “I don't--”

A crash makes Doctor Waters and Elyan turn around. Arthur doesn't care enough to check what occasioned it. 

“It's the service module from The Dragonlord!” Freya says, tearing off at a run.

“Bugger me, it is!” Elyan says before loping ahead to catch up with Freya.

It takes Arthur a few seconds to put two and two together. When he does he sprints ahead, overtaking both Freya and Elyan.

Parts of the service module litter the landing area, and the conveyance itself is severely damaged. It smokes in places, is dented in others.

Arthur climbs its sides and though the metal is scalding hot, he tries to wrench the hatch open. “Help me,” he shouts. “Help me open this!”

Freya and Elyan go up the sides of the module and pitch their weight in. 

The metal groans but doesn't yield.

“We need a blowtorch, “ Elyan says. “Or to override the module's systems.”

Before Arthur can call for tools, the hatch groans open. A battered, bruised Merlin, his hair plastered to his skull, pokes his head out. “Arthur,” he says, eyes as big as saucers. “Arthur.”

Arthur hauls him bodily out of the module. Together they stagger across the landing area until Merlin crashes to his knees, bringing him down with him. 

Arthur yells for paramedics, but before he can say anything more, Merlin takes his face in his hands and says, “Arthur, it's you.”

“Yes.” Arthur swallows. “Who'd you think it'd be?”

“I just,” Merlin says, tears tracking down his face, “thought that I'd never...” He chokes, his Adam's apple takes a plunge, then tries again. “That I'd never see you again.”

“It's me,” Arthur says, and, fuck it, he sounds as wrecked as Merlin does. His eyes glaze over too, and he fights it, because he can't break down now. Not after so long. “A little bit older, a little bit the worse for wear, but it's me.”

“It's...” Merlin says, and his shoulders hunch in a cover up for a sob, his face gets all smeared with tears, and his voice goes hiccuppy and low. “The most beautiful sight I've ever seen.”

Arthur grabs Merlin by the neck and pulls Merlin to him.

 

***** 

The mug is hot and full to the brim with a pale brew of tea. Merlin palms it and lets the warmth seep into his skin. He sighs as tension drains from his muscles.

“The planet is beautiful,” Merlin says, recollecting the beauties of their future home, “the sky is so very bright and the grass is so very green.”

Arthur stops pacing; he puts his hands on his hips. “You nearly didn't make it here. And all because you had to play martyr.”

Merlin's head snaps up. He sucks in all the breath he needs to weather this. “It wasn't like that! We had only so much fuel and the crew needed to get back to earth.”

“So you decided to take one for the team!” Arthur throws his hands up in the air.

“No.” Merlin violently shakes his head. “I was the on board engineer. I knew the Dragonlord's capabilities. I trusted in chance.”

“What the hell do you mean!” Arthur holds his chin up, his jaw set till his cheek muscles look taut.

“I didn't detach until I came as close to the brink of the wormhole as I could,” Merlin says. “I may not be an astrophysicist, but I knew that if I got very, very close to it the distortions of space and time'd be so great that stable orbits would no longer be possible. I hoped I'd fall in.”

“You hoped!”

“Yes.” Merlin smiles because all's well and frankly he doesn't want to discuss what he did. Arthur's here. He's alive and looking healthy and Merlin's missed on so much – Arthur's no longer the boy he left behind – that he doesn't want to waste any time on words. He just needs to drink Arthur in to his heart's content. Because Arthur... Arthur snared his heart years ago and whatever else may have changed, that hasn't. “Yes, I hoped it'd work out and if it didn't... It was a good way to go out. Doing a good thing.” A frown tugs at his brow. “Why are we even talking about this?”

“Because.” Arthur's eyes glow with fire. “Because you nearly died! I was sure you had.”

Merlin stands up abruptly, sloshing tea everywhere, belatedly puts the mug down, straightens again. “I took a chance.”

“Why! Why would you!”

“Because I hoped that you'd live,” Merlin says, “that you and your descendants, if you had any, would be all right. Because you matter to me and the thought made me happy!”

“So you would have left me to mourn you.” Arthur ducks his head but Merlin can spot the tension lines around his mouth, has caught a glimpse of wetness in his eyes.

“Arthur,” Merlin says, shoulders sagging. “I have a rough idea of how many years have passed on earth. I thought you would have learnt to...”

“You thought I'd got over you,” Arthur says, holding his head up high. “You thought I'd have forgotten you.”

“But doesn't time work like that?” Merlin asks.

“No.” Arthur shakes his head sharply. “I never got over you. Oh I had relationships. I even got married at one point. I tried. I tried really hard to be rational. To not wait for you. Because what were the odds?”

Merlin nods, inhales hard.

“But I always had you on the brain,” Arthur says and though it should be flattering and heart-warming, he says it with such anger Merlin takes a step backwards as if he's been slapped in the face. “My marriage lasted six months. The time it took her to realise I wasn't hauling my weight in. Then I told her.” Arthur holds his temple. “She said I acted as though I thought I was cheating on you.”

“You weren't,” Merlin says, because he understands. The time he was away... It was just so long. “I understand...”

“But it wasn't that,” Arthur says, licking at a tear that makes it down his face. “I just missed you so much... So fucking much. I couldn't be with someone who wasn't you. It took me a while to understand... To get that you can't ignore...” He thumps at his chest and it must have hurt. “Certain things. Act like they aren't real. Because you keep wanting and wanting and it doesn't matter if it would be wiser to try and cheer up. Because you can't.”

“I'm sorry,” Merlin says, barely able to hold himself upright this guts him so much. “For making you so unhappy, for going...”

“You saved the world, Merlin,” Arthur says, his eyes emptying of the anger that was in them and filling with the affection Merlin was once used to getting from Arthur. “You shouldn't be saying sorry.”

“You did. You saved the world, finishing the equation,” Merlin says, taking a step towards Arthur. “I only brought you grief and I shouldn't... I shouldn't have...”

“You did the right thing.” Arthur's gaze fills Merlin with warmth that radiates from his marrow outwards.

Merlin edges closer to Arthur still. “Not if you were so unhappy.”

“You're worth the heart ache, Merlin,” Arthur says, bridging the distance between them, touching his face with tentative fingers. “You're worth that and more besides.”

“I--” Merlin's heart is pounding like striking hammers in his chest. “I want you to be happy with all that I have.”

Arthur sidles closer so that his breath ghosts gently across Merlin's lips. “I want to kiss you,” he says. “But I don't know if it's still the same.” His mouth twists. “I'm the older one now and--”

Merlin touches Arthur's lips with his. “You're a sight for sore eyes.”

Arthur grimaces. “I know I'm not what you remember. I've changed and you...” His hands cup Merlin's face, his thumbs circling under the jut of Merlin's cheekbones, and along the softer lines of his face. “But you've stayed the same.”

“Hibernation,” Merlin says, though Arthur knows that and that's not what he actually wants to talk about. He doubts that what he thinks can be properly conveyed with words, but he tries all the same. “But that doesn't matter, does it? I mean I hope it doesn't. Because I want you too. But that's not it, either.”

Arthur's face clenches wholesale, his jaw sticks out. “I understand. It's been... You must have gone through hell and I--”

“Because it's not about wanting,” Merlin hurries on. “It's about how much I...” Merlin doesn't think he can say the words without baring all that he is. “Arthur, what I feel for you has taken up a big chunk of my heart and all that I am and it's never ever going to change.”

Arthur gasps. “Not even with all that's come between?”

“I should be the one to ask that question,” Merlin says, trying to wrap his head around the notion Arthur has been missing him far longer than Merlin has. How that must have changed him, must have made his life harder and faced him with decisions he wouldn't have had to make if the world had been different. “But as for me, time can be as crazy as it will, stretch out or slow down as much as it wants, but it won't change what I feel for you.”

Arthur brushes his thumb at the side of Merlin's lips. “I know for a fact that nothing will change what I feel either.”

Sleeping with Arthur is the same yet different. It's not because his body has changed. He has indeed grown wider in the shoulders and chest, his musculature has made him broader than he was at twenty, although he never was a waifish one. But because he touches Merlin with a brand new assurance, because a new determination to enjoy every single moment rather than rush onwards shines in his eyes. 

That determination is tinged with desperation, but then again Merlin can't say he isn't frantic himself. 

He learns this new Arthur with lips that tremble as they chase the lines of his body, new paths that Merlin wants to get to know by heart. He kisses Arthur like it's their last time, touches him with hands that shake and are hungry for touch, that shape themselves around the planes and angles and curves of him. Tastes his skin with his tongue. 

Arthur does the same by him. Fits his lips to Merlin's with hunger, wraps his arms and legs around him as if he doesn't want to let go. Digs his fingers in where Merlin's flesh yields. He gasps into his mouth as if he wants to suck in Merlin's breaths.

As they rock together, he moves at a counter pace to his, panting to the same harsh rhythm, looking into his eyes as if he can know Merlin again just by virtue of locking gazes. And perhaps he can, because Merlin wants to bare himself to Arthur in all the ways he can.

He wants to mend things, bridge the gap of distance. 

Right at the end, after Arthur has trembled in his arms and Merlin has buried his head in Arthur's neck to stifle his own sigh, Arthur touches his face with the tips of his fingers, the broad of his palm. “This time I'm not going to be too proud to say I don't want you to go,” he says as he strokes his fingers down Merlin's face. 

“The only other voyage I'm going to make is to our new planet.” Merlin interlocks their fingers. “And you'll come right along.”

 

The End


End file.
